


After You

by Ludwiggle73



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Autism, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, POV First Person, Separation Anxiety, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 06:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17617121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludwiggle73/pseuds/Ludwiggle73
Summary: Francis goes away for the night. Arthur tries to protect him.[Domestic FrUK.]





	After You

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been in my head for almost a year, but it wasn't until I wrote YLM that I found the right characters for it. This is, as the tags say, an unofficial sequel to 'Your Last Mistake' - you don't need to read that first to understand this, and whether or not this is "canon" is open for you to decide.
> 
> Enjoy, friends :)

Rules are very important to me.

I need to know what will happen in a day, or a week, or a month. It’s dangerous if I don’t know. Rules make things easy to predict, which means rules make life safer.

(Example: If you drop something it will fall, unless it is a balloon with helium inside it. This is because of the Law of Gravity, which is a rule. So if you drop something, you’ll always know it will fall. That’s safe.)

(I have a domino in my office. I keep it on my desk. Francis gave it to me. Sometimes I tip it off my desk, just to make sure it will fall. It always does, and I always feel better after that.)

I have lots of rules. There’s a set of rules for each room in the house, and one for me, and one for Francis. There are rules for strangers, acquaintances, co-workers, and friends. There were rules for family members, but now there’s just one: We don’t talk to my parents. Francis has said many inappropriate things about my parents, mostly because they removed me from their Will.

Money doesn’t really matter to me. The rule is you need to have more money than you give away. That’s simple maths. Francis and I each get money we can use to buy things we like, if there’s enough left over from rent and bills. He spends his on clothes. I spend mine on books.

I have one hundred and thirty-two books, which Francis says is too many. He says I should get them from a library instead of buying them new, but library books are touched by strangers and strangers aren’t allowed to touch me. They have germs, as well, because people don’t wash their hands properly.

You have to wash your hands for thirty seconds. That’s the rule.

Routine isn’t a rule, because sometimes it changes, but it is very important. It is a rule that any change has to be requested ahead of time. I don’t like surprises. They’re dangerous.

 

A normal day goes like this:

I wake up at 6:30 AM.

I have a shower, comb my hair, brush my teeth, get dressed.

While I get dressed, Francis has a shower and brushes his teeth. He combs his hair with his fingers, which makes them smell of shampoo, which smells of flowers.

Francis makes breakfast for us.

I take my medications. I have several. They aren’t really medications; most of them are vitamins. They aren’t prescribed by a doctor. Francis found out about them by speaking with some parents of autistic children. He was part of a support group for a while, but he left it. He told me he didn’t have a lot of common ground with middle-aged parents. I have nothing in common with the children, either. Most of them couldn’t talk or communicate.

(Note: Some people think talking and communicating are synonymous. This is false. I can talk very well, but I can rarely communicate.)

Francis goes to work. He works two part-time jobs, because he doesn’t like sitting at a desk all day.

I go to work. I work at home, as an editor. I’ve edited articles, textbooks, newsletters. Editing is about following the rules and sitting at a desk, so I like it.

I have lunch. Usually it’s a sandwich, but on Sundays it’s fruit salad in a can. Francis says it’s gross because it’s not fresh, but I like it because it’s easy and the shapes are all the same and you don’t get your hands sticky.

I go back to work and read when I finish.

Francis comes home. We have small talk about his day while he makes supper. I would rather we didn’t do it, but he likes it.

(Example: “How was your day?” followed by twenty minutes of Francis talking. As long as I don’t interrupt and nod every dozen words, it’s not rude if I don’t listen to all of it.)

We watch television. Usually two game shows, a true crime documentary for me, and a romantic comedy for Francis. I don’t like it, because it has a laugh track, which makes me feel more alienated when I don’t understand why a facial expression is supposed to be funny.

We go to bed. Sometimes we have sex. We only do it when we both want to, which is the most important bedroom rule after keeping the blinds closed because I need total darkness to sleep.

We say goodnight, but the last thing we say is _I love you._ We do it in the same order every time. Francis whispers _I love you._ Then I whisper _I love you, too_. That’s the rule.

 

The most frightening day of my life was not when I went to university. It wasn’t when I flew with Francis, Alfred, and Matthew across the ocean to visit our teacher from elementary school. It wasn’t when Francis and I held hands to cross the street and some men sitting on a wall shouted words even Francis wouldn’t repeat.

It was when Francis left.

 

“I’m going to the city tonight,” he tells me. He’s making supper in a hurry, whirling around the kitchen. I can hardly watch him and hear him at the same time. “I was asked to read my poetry at a cafe, it’s called The Inkwell. It’s a writer place, you would like it.”

“No. You can’t go tonight. Go next week.” Even that’s pushing it, but I’ve learned compromise is a cornerstone of social interaction.

Francis looks at me. “Arthur. This is important to me.”

I don’t like his poetry, because I don’t understand it. It’s all free verse, which has no rules, and it’s even worse because he writes it all in lowercase, and sometimes the words swarm all over the page and I have to cover them with my hands and read them one at a time. He says it’s all on purpose and it adds meaning. I think he’s crazy.

(It’s a rule that we don’t call each other crazy or stupid, because other people do that and you should treat others as you would like to be treated. I never do it out loud, but I think Francis does it in his head sometimes. I can sort of tell, when he gets a certain look on his face that’s easy to remember because his nostrils flare and he huffs, which is what he did when he came home to find me emptying all the pill bottles so I could count the contents because it makes me feel safer to know. Now I count them when we first open them, and there’s no huffing.)

“Go next week,” I say again.

“It isn’t happening next week. It’s happening tonight.” Francis smiles. “We could go together, if you wanted. You could listen to me read.”

“No, thank you.” There’s a new murder documentary on tonight, about a body found chopped up in a woodpile.

“I didn’t think so.” Francis turns his back to me. “I’m staying the night up there, too. It doesn’t end until after midnight and we’ll probably be drinking, so I’ll stay with Toni.”

“You can’t sleep somewhere else.” He’s never slept somewhere else. As long as we’ve lived together, he’s always slept with me. I can’t sleep alone. I don’t know how.

“I am, Arthur.” He comes close to me and looks into my eyes. He’s the only one allowed to do it. “I’m going. I deserve this, don’t I? I do all this for you. Can’t you do this one night for me?”

This is a logical fallacy. He is implying that everything he does for me is not because he loves me, but because he wants to convert it into justification for leaving me, which he wouldn’t do if he loved me. In simpler terms:

He does things for me.

I don’t do as many things for him.

Therefor, he is allowed to abandon me all night.

This disregards that a) I have more unsolvable problems than he does, b) even if I wanted to do more I don’t have permission to do several things such as cook or drive, c) the pleasure he will get from poetry at midnight will almost certainly not match the displeasure being alone will give me, and d) I always hold him when he has nightmares, even when he kicks me and screams in my ear.

We keep each other safe, because we love each other. That’s the first rule of us.

“You’re not supposed to leave me alone,” I say, even though that’s blatantly obvious.

“I leave you alone all day, mon amour!” Francis throws his hands up in the air. “What’s the difference?”

I’ve never heard a more ridiculous phrase than _What’s the difference._

“You work during the day,” I say slowly, “and you sleep at night. Here, in bed, with me.”

“Arthur.” He closes his eyes, fingers on his temples. “Listen to me. Please. You need to try to see things from my perspective.”

“That’s impossible,” I tell him, because it is. I have no other perspective. I see the world through backward binoculars: everything is in a tiny tunnel, so I can only focus on the small thing I can see. When there’s too much to look at, I go blind. That’s why I don’t wish I could see from Francis’s perspective. I would get overwhelmed in a second.

(Example: He says sunsets are so beautiful they make him want to cry. They make my eyes water, too, because they make the whole sky as bright as the sun. It’s too much for me. Most things Francis considers romantic are too much for me.)

“Try. Please.” Francis looks at me. I think he looks tired. “You know how people go on vacations to exotic places? Well, this is my vacation. I just need a little break, for myself. Okay? It’s not because I don’t love you. I know I’m breaking rules, and I apologize for that.” He smiles with teeth. “Is there any way you can agree to me going? Is there something I can do to make it okay?”

This is his attempt at compromise. Notice how it ends with him getting what he wants. I want to just say no, but I think about it, because it’s an interesting question. Rules can evolve, because that way they become stronger and thus safer. If he goes tonight . . .

 

Pros of Francis leaving:

  1. I don’t have to watch the romantic comedy sitcom
  2. I get more space in the bed
  3. I don’t have to hear him snore



 

Cons of Francis leaving:

  1. I’ll be alone all night long
  2. He’s breaking rules
  3. He won’t be here to say goodnight



 

Three is a good number, but six isn’t. My therapist told me to always try to minimize cons, so I tell Francis, “You have to stay until bedtime so you can say goodnight.”

Francis shakes his head. “I can’t stay that late. By the time I got there, it’d be past my time to read. You could go to bed at a different time.”

“Talk to the hand,” I tell him, which is a nicer way of saying _over my dead body_ , which means no.

Francis plays with his hair. I used to get anxious when he wore it down around his face, but I don’t mind it so much now. My therapist calls that progress, but I call it resignation. I almost like it, sometimes. Almost.

(Example: I’m on top of him and his hair is fanned out around his head on his pillow. That’s nice.)

“I could call you,” he says. “And tell you goodnight. Would that work?”

I don’t want it to, but it does. It eliminates a con, which makes it better overall for Francis to leave. I think about it all again, and I get the same result. So, reluctantly, I say, “You can go.”

“Ah! Thank you!” He wraps his arms around me and kisses my cheek three times in a row. His smile is so wide it looks like it should hurt. “Merci, mon amour. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I say automatically.

(Note: Some people, like the men on the wall, think it should be against the rules for two men or two women to love each other. That’s why it’s against the rules for us to get married.)

(I think I’d like to get married someday.)

 

Francis has been gone thirty-three minutes when I realize this was a mistake.

I’m watching the murder documentary by myself. It’s half over. It’s a true story. The girl went missing one night and they didn’t find her for six months. Six is such a terrible number.

I try to figure out the probability of Francis being killed tonight. He’s driving, car crash statistics go up every year, but I don’t know them by heart.

(Note: Some people think autistic people can memorize everything they see and do ten-digit sums in their heads. This is incorrect. I can only do seven digits. Some autistic people can do more than ten, probably. Most autistic people can’t communicate well enough to tell anyone if they understand sums, so everyone assumes they’re stupid.)

(I don’t think communication skills should be a measure of intelligence.)

Broadly speaking, Francis probably isn’t dead. Most people who are alive tonight will not die, so the odds are in his favor. But murderers don’t obey logic or statistics. Francis might be killed.

Francis might already be dead.

When you think about it in an even broader way, there are only two options: dead, or not dead. That makes it fifty-fifty. He can be alive, or he can be dead. This is like Schrödinger’s cat: because I can’t see him, he’s alive and dead at the same time.

If he’s dead, no one will make me breakfast and supper. I’ll be alone always. I’ll have no one to go places with me. I can’t leave the house without Francis. That’s a rule. My therapist says it’s a bad rule. He says I’m restricting myself. He says I’m developing a dependency on Francis that could be unhealthy.

This makes no sense. I need him. Of course I’m dependent on him. That’s what _need_ means.

But.

The most important rule is that we keep each other safe.

Which means I need to break a rule.

 

I take these supplies:

  * a domino, which Francis gave me
  * a photograph of Francis, in case I need to show a police officer what he looks like
  * $100 in five $20 bills



 

Our house is a long way from the nearest bus stop. I like to be away from other houses, because that way you don’t have to see people mowing the lawn without a shirt on or trespassing on your property to borrow a cup of sugar. I don’t like it now, because I have to walk by myself in the dark. I’m not afraid of the dark, but I don’t trust it. It hides things you could trip over or walk into. If Francis was here, I’d hold his hand and it would be better. I try holding my own hand, but it’s not the same.

My legs hurt by the time I get to the bus stop. It’s outside a building where people in yellow vests work, but they’re gone now. There’s one man standing against the wall. He’s smoking a cigarette. I stand three feet away from him, my hands in my pockets. I hold the domino with one hand and the picture with the other.

_I’m breaking a rule, but it’s okay._ That’s what I keep saying, inside my head.

“Hey.”

_I’m breaking a rule, but it’s okay._

“You want a smoke?”

_I’m breaking a rule, but it’s okay._

“What did you say?”

I close my eyes. If I can drown it out, it doesn’t matter, it can’t hurt me. _I’m breaking a rule, but it’s okay._

“Jesus. Should have a separate bus for you freaks, seems like that’s the only goddamn people on the bus these days.”

I am not the freak in this situation. I am minding my own business. I am breaking a rule, but it is okay.

I open my eyes when the bus comes. It’s loud. I’ve never been on a bus before, but I’ve seen them in films. You get on, pay, and sit down. Then it stops, and you get off. Simple.

The freak gets on ahead of me. I climb on. The driver says hello to me. I don’t like talking to strangers, but I do it anyway because I have to. “How much is it?”

“Two bucks.”

I keep my eyes on the floor and give him one of the bills.

“We ain’t supposed to make change. This all you got?”

“Yes.” I can see a glass box with a slot in the top. There are coins and bills inside. There is definitely eighteen dollars in there.

“Come _on_ ,” the freak says somewhere behind me.

“Alright,” the bus driver says. “Tell you what. I’ll keep this and the next time you ride you don’t gotta pay. Free ride, next time. Sound good, buddy?”

There is only one person allowed to call me _buddy_ and he isn’t here.

“That’s ten rides,” I tell him. “Two dollars each.”

“For God’s sake,” the freak says. “Just sit down, math genius. Some of us got places to be.”

“Sit down, kiddo,” the driver says, even though I’m twenty-eight.

I sit down on the closest seat to the door. I almost fall over when the bus starts to move. It’s loud. I close my eyes and cover my ears. Francis would say it’s okay. He would hold my hand.

I hope I don’t die before I find out if he’s alive.

 

“Hey. Bucko. You connecting?”

I open my eyes. I don’t see anyone.

“Yoo-hoo.”

I turn. The driver is watching me in a rectangular mirror. I lower my eyes.

“I said, you connecting?”

_I’m breaking a rule, but it’s okay._

“Do you even know where you’re going?”

“Yes.”

“. . . Where are you going?”

“The city.”

“Well, this bus doesn’t go there, so you gotta connect. Get up, and take this.”

I stand up, slowly. My legs feel strange. The driver gives me a piece of paper with numbers on it.

“You want the H bus,” the driver tells me.

“Where is that?”

“On its way. So get out and wait for it.”

I climb off the bus. Something cold touches my face and I realize it’s starting to rain. There’s a bus shelter here, so I stand inside it. The rain patters and hisses on the roof, which is wonderful. The freak is here, which is not wonderful. He makes a face that I think means he’s tasting something he doesn’t like.

“Oh,” he says. “You. Great.”

I’m not a fan of sarcasm.

 

Here is how I know that Francis loves me:

  * he makes me food
  * he keeps his half of the closet color-coordinated like mine
  * he always lets me be on top because being on the bottom is too much
  * he never leaves me



 

Here is how I know that I love Francis:

  * I eat his food even when I don’t really like it
  * I don’t fix his socks when he mixes up violet and indigo
  * I try my best to make him finish first, even when it’s really hard
  * when he leaves, I go after him



 

When I get on the H bus, I know it’s not a good idea. There are so many people on it I have to sit next to an old man with a walker. A woman has a baby, and it’s fussing. It smells like sickness, and cigarettes, and strangers. It sounds like the bus roaring and a hundred people talking all at the same time.

I don’t like crowds.

I don’t like strangers.

I don’t like this.

I’m breaking a rule, but it’s okay.

I’m looking for Francis.

I’m going to keep him safe.

The baby is crying.

I cover my ears and rock.

I’m looking for Francis.

I’m breaking a rule, but it’s okay.

Someone touches me.

I’M BREAKING A RULE BUT IT’S OKAY

“Jesus Christ! Stop screaming and get off this bus. I’m not getting in trouble for some lunatic hurting somebody.”

STOPTOUCHINGME

I fall to my knees on something hard. I curl down on myself, so my forehead is on the ground. It’s cold and hard and wet but it doesn’t change so it’s safe. I stay there and think _it’s okay it’s okay it’s okay_ until I can breathe again.

When I stand up, I’m very wet and my head hurts, and I don’t know where I am. Is this the city? There are a lot of buildings and cars. All of it coats my eyes with colors and lights and lines. None of it makes sense. Car horns are honking, so I cover my ears. There are some people walking and too many other dangerous things for me to close my eyes, so I keep them open. I look at the world like I look at faces.

(Note: some people think I don’t make eye contact because I’m a psychopath or subhuman. This is incorrect. I don’t mind looking at other people’s eyes. I just don’t do it because it invites them to look at my eyes, which makes my skin crawl.)

When I look at someone I do it with quick glances. I get details one at a time, so it’s not overwhelming. Lips, nose, eyes, hands, hair, shirt. That’s one reason expressions are confusing. You have to look at the face as a whole, and take into account the context, their posture, what they just said, and what the words might have meant—and if their eyebrow moves even a fraction, it means something else.

Francis says I’m smarter than him, but he can solve infinitely more complex equations than I can.

Now I’m lost. I can’t remember what he said the cafe was called. Even if I knew, I couldn’t ask someone. I can’t look at a stranger right now. I can’t speak. Everything is tangled up. Francis would know, if he was here. He would know what to do.

I have to keep wiping water from my face. I don’t cry very often, and I can’t tell if I’m crying now because of the rain. I’m upset enough to cry. I’ve broken a rule and it’s not okay anymore.

A car pulls up beside me. Someone could roll down their window and shoot me, or grab me, and kill me. I wonder if I should run.

I wonder if Francis has died. Maybe I’m too late.

“Arthur?”

I turn.

Antonio is standing beside the car. I know him because he’s a friend of Francis’s. I don’t like him because he calls me Arturo sometimes, but that’s not what he calls me now.

“Arthur, my God, I almost didn’t recognize you. What are you doing here? Did you come with Francis?”

“No.” I clear my throat because it’s all shaky. Then I realize I’m the one shaking. “I’m looking for Francis. I broke a rule—”

“Get in the car, you’re gonna get pneumonia. Here, put my coat on. Jesus—”

“I broke a rule—”

“Here.” Antonio zips his coat zipper up to my neck even though I don’t like zippers against my throat. “Good thing I’m running late—what did you say?”

“I broke a rule,” I tell him. My voice is small.

His eyes are green, like mine; maybe that’s why it’s not so hard to look at them. “It’s okay.”

 

Antonio takes me to the cafe. It’s nice, because it’s mostly dark in here, and there are plants and soft gold lights like you’d put on a Christmas tree. Antonio gets me a table at the back and tells me to stay here while he goes to find Francis.

Then someone says his name.

“With his first spoken word poem, Francis Bonnefoy.”

There’s a spotlight, and Francis is in it. He’s alive, and he’s here, and he’s smiling. Then he starts to talk.

 

_when i was a kid i thought sex and love were the same thing_

_and sex and hate and sex and fear and sex and_

_love was tangled up in it all_

_in a knot little fingers couldn’t untie_

_but more hands came_

_bigger hands and warm hands and cold hands and_

_your hands, gentle hands, soft hands_

_they tremble sometimes, but that’s alright_

_mine do, too_

_your hands untied all the ugly from the beautiful_

_and there’s still bad times but don’t we all have those_

_it’s okay to live in a cage as long as it’s safe_

_and you make sure it’s safe_

_i do, too_

_my hands and your hands_

_we’re the tallest kids i know_

_and if i could do it again, all i would change_

_is when you moved your hand away from mine_

_that very first time i would grab it_

_and hold it with mine and tell you what you taught me_

_it’s alright_

 

Everyone raises their hands and snaps their fingers. I snap mine, too, even though I’m not very good at it. Francis can’t see me, but I smile for him anyway. He wasn’t just talking, but communicating as well.

Finally, I understand.

  


_The End._


End file.
